Life

A couple years after getting married, Christina and I moved to Korea. Until then, though we had visited other countries, neither of us had ever lived outside of Canada. In fact, we were about to purchase our first home in Montreal, but when I got a job offer to work at one of the largest churches in the world—I’m not exaggerating, it was a church of 50,000 people—our priorities conveniently changed in an instant.

I found myself saying things like:

Isn’t this a once-in-a-lifetime sort of opportunity?

I’d be stupid to say no, right? After all, we don’t even have children yet.

This would skyrocket my career. Just imagine what this would look like on my résumé!

God has to be in this, otherwise, why else would I get such an opportunity?

I’m going to make such a greater impact there than I would here, so isn’t this a no-brainer?”

I’ve forgotten which of those phrases I said to Christina, which ones I kept hidden in my heart, and which ones I wasn’t even aware of myself, but that pretty much sums it up—and I’m not proud of it.

Within a couple months, we sold everything—including my beloved Volkswagen GTI—packed what we could in a few suitcases, stored what we could at Christina’s parents’ place, and bought a one-way ticket to Seoul, South Korea.

The plan was to stay there long-term.

Christina enrolled in Korean lessons, was working with me at the church, and started her Masters in Counseling. I was pastoring, finishing up graduate school, and teaching English on the side. Life was good and things were fruitful. In fact, they were so fruitful that a year after we moved to Korea, we became a family of three!

So with our baby girl, we decided it was time to grow up and move out of our furnished apartment in the party district. We wanted to lay down roots, so we found a nice little two-bedroom apartment and furnished it ourselves. We even bought an oven, which wasn’t a normal appliance for a typical Korean home. Can you tell momma bird was nesting?

Life was really good, until everything started to unravel.

And by everything, this time I really do mean everything. A few months after moving into our new apartment, we lost our jobs, our closest friends, and our home. We lost our livelihood and everything was taken out from under our feet. In short, my ladder-climbing-résumé-building-career-rocketing adventure abruptly came to an end, and we had to move back to Canada.

I was devastated.

Once the dust settled, I started wondering if we had somehow made the wrong decision. Maybe we were never supposed to go in the first place. Perhaps I incorrectly assumed that God was leading us (because of my mixed motives), when in fact, it was just a good opportunity.

I was also ashamed.

What would I say to the doubters who thought we were making a mistake to sell everything and move halfway across the world? What would I say to my parents who were leery of us going in the first place? How was I supposed to support my wife and child now that I was without a job and essentially homeless? And why did I feel like someone had just punched me in the gut, stolen my keys, and driven off with my car? After all, it’s just a job, isn’t it?

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